


Black Metal

by summoninglupine



Category: Lokasenna (Norse Religion & Lore), Norse Religion & Lore
Genre: Gen, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, only death is real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-23 07:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23141161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summoninglupine/pseuds/summoninglupine
Summary: Beneath the soil, at the mercy of a serpent, Loki tells himself a story to keep his mind from the agony of his punishment.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11
Collections: Once Upon a Fic 2020





	Black Metal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roguefaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguefaerie/gifts).



It wasn’t evil, he had told those who would listen at the time, it just wasn’t _good_. And yet seldom did people listen to him, he found, when he told that he had not been necessarily dedicated to an evil intent, rather than that had simply been the natural outcome of events. People, he believed, often had these binary notions of good and evil, of a certain kind of action leading to a certain kind of outcome, and life so rarely worked that way in that experience.

It had been at a family gathering of sorts that all this had started, because all such stories begin at family gatherings. To hear Loki tell the tale—and he did tell the tale often, on the long nights when all he could hear was the drip-drip-drip of the snake’s venom into the black metal bowl and he was desperate for a distraction from what was to come—he had not been to blame, not _technically_ at least, because _technically_ it had been Fimafeng’s fault, may he forever eat dirt.

He would smile at this, momentarily forgetting himself, and he would amuse himself with the observation that you could not get the staff nowadays, and he would find that funny because it was such a petty observation, such a silly observation, that it felt exceedingly normal, exceedingly trivial in light of all that came to pass after.

Anyway, it was Fimafeng’s fault, not his, that was clear to any fool. His mood would often sour at this point. It _was_ Fimafeng’s fault, and if Fimafeng had not been so keen to luxuriate in undeserved praise—and if, likewise, his fragile body had not come apart so readily on the edge of Loki’s blade—then none of what followed would have happened, and he wouldn’t be—

_Drip-drip-drip._

_Anyway_ , Fimafeng had died just as quickly as he was reputed to serve tables, and for this, this trivial, piddling matter, Loki had been driven out of Ægir’s hall and into the dark. Ah, but if only that had been the end of the tale! Passion once stirred, they said, was hard to silence, and Loki had oft been known for his passionate nature, though none other of his family would have termed it that.

_Drip-drip-drip._

Family, he thought again, another means of distraction. He had thought of them once as his family, thought that they were brothers and sisters, but had he needed a reminder of the true distance between them, then the drip of the poison in the bowl above him was more than enough. They were not family. Loki, who was born of Farbauti and Laufey, was not of the Æsir. He knew that now.

_Drip-drip—_

Pain ran through him, the blistering of his right eye as the venom from the serpent above stained his face, the bowl removed so that his wife, silent and solemn, might pour away its contents and resume her humble task. He cursed her name, he screamed of her impropriety, declaimed her nature, questioned whether the children she had borne had ever truly been his, and, at last, fell silent as she placed the bowl again above him and the poison no longer spattered upon his face.

In the hall of Ægir, he reminded himself; in the hall of Ægir, where they had turned him away, and where, again, he had returned, full of drunken ambition and wounded pride, and where bale and hatred he had brought the gods, their mead mixed with venom.

_Drip-drip-drip._

The past was over, he told himself, there was only the impending wave of the future, the world to come, the end of everything, and yet he could not stop himself from dwelling on all that had taken place, on the reason for his place beneath the soil.

Swollen with pride, they had been, swollen with pride and silent in his presence as he had returned from the wild, Fimafeng’s blood still upon his hands, and Odin, whom distant peoples called Hermes, his blood-brother, his _friend_ had simply sat there in cyclopean judgement, squinting at him with his remaining eye, and letting his voice rise, his fury build. 

The old man had tricked him, he realised, with a sudden, bitter laugh. He, Loki, had been tricked into saying too much by his own kin. It had been Odin’s plan all along, of that he was certain; the old bastard had _intended_ for him to make a fool of himself, for the gods to turn against him.

Deceit! Betrayal! He would demand recompense be made, would demand—

_Drip._

Beneath the bowl, his body tensed, his eyes wide as he met his wife’s gaze, as she looked at him with silent apology, and he knew what had to come next. There was a moment, a long, long moment, and gently, slowly, she moved the bowl from him, careful not to swill its poison over his body, and yet, in that moment, leaving him naked before the venom, naked beneath that open wound of a mouth of the old serpent.

When he screamed, when he cried out, when he thrashed against his bonds, the whole world shook, and through the fog of pain, he pleaded, and cajoled, and swore oaths, and promised vengeance, and begged for anything that would stop the pain, for brief as it was, the agony felt like a lifetime.

One drop was all that fell, one single drop that graced him in Sigyn’s absence, but that single drop ruined him, sent him into shuddering, crying proclamations and denials. 

It was a moment, just a single moment, the routine of Sigyn’s movements, her careful emptying of the vessel, her hasty return to his side, but the pain continued to throb through his blistering skin, his aching nerves, until finally it began to pass, and again the bowl had to be moved, and they would begin their dance again.

_Drip-drip—_

He tried not to think of her needs. She was a god after all, she wasn’t like him, wasn’t possessed of the same desires, the same passions. Who cared if she had no rest, if she could not eat, could not sleep, it was Loki who truly suffered. She wasn’t bound up beneath the dirt, she wasn’t suffering beneath the venom of the serpent. She was like them, after all, one of their kind, the Æsir, and whatever they had said, whatever Odin had once claimed, there was a difference between them. 

_Drip-drip-drip._

Fine, he thought. He did not want to be one of them, he did not want to be like them. And yet the jötnar had rejected him also, otherwise he would never have fallen into Odin’s care. What was he then, he asked, trying not to think of the pain, trying to dissuade himself from the agony; what was he, neither Æsir nor jötnar, a man who had birthed children, a being who somehow defied that binary of gods and giants.

Something more, he told himself, closing his eyes, trying not to hear the fall of the poison into the bowl. You are something more, Loki, something different, and there is no shame, no matter how much this hurts, no matter how you have been treated, no matter how you have acted before this.

He took a breath, and, in the darkness behind his eyelids, there was a moment’s peace. If he could hold onto this, a dim thought occurred to him, if he could hold onto this, he could endure it, he could exist here, he could survive in this misshapen form, blistered black by the snake’s hatred, attended by a woman he had never had consideration for.

If he could hold on, if he could be himself—

_Drip-drip—_

If he could know himself, if he could stop making excuses, stop expecting punishment, then maybe, maybe—

_Drip._

It came again.

_Drip._

As it would keep coming.

_Drip._

As it would never cease.

_Drip._

_Drip._

_Drip._

Another poison touched his face. In that moment as the bowl moved, he realised that Sigyn was weeping.

_Drip._


End file.
